At first, I was going to write another ponderous tome on government and trying to keep it responsive to the interests of the electorate.

It’s a dark and lonely job, as they say, but somebody’s got to do it.

And then it occurred to me that today’s date is 12/12/12. Trivia like that catches my eye, particularly since 12/12 is my friend Mary’s birthday, making it easier to remember than random dates like July 4 or Oct. 31.

It will be another century before 12/12/12 rolls around again on the odometer, and by then I may have quit writing this column, or FSU may have beaten Florida, or something.

Then again, if the Mayans got it right, we might actually be wasting our time with Black Friday/Cyber Saturday/More-of-the-Same Monday and all those other pre-Christmas celebrations this year.

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It has kind of gotten crowded off the front page by really important news like Lindsey Lohan’s latest arrest, the hiring of USF’s new football coach, and whether Brad and Angelina will heed their kids’ pleas to get married by Christmas, but it may all end on Dec. 21 (12/21/12, if you please).

All of what, you ask?

All of everything.

The final curtain.

Or as Porky Pig used to say, Duh-duhba-duh-duhba-duh-That’s all folks.

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The Mayans, who are widely recognized as mankind’s all-time authority on, well, Maya, predicted a long, long time ago that the world would come to an end as the result of some cataclysmic event on 12/21/12.

It is not clear just how this event would affect our lives, but it certainly would seem a downer for manufacturers of 2013 calendars.

On the other hand, sales of multi-million dollar “apocalypse-proof villas,” a better marketing term than “doomsday shelters,” are reported to be booming from Kansas to the Swiss Alps.

And there are iPhone apps for counting down our remaining days.

No less a seer than Nostradamus made some predictions about this stuff back in the 16th century, but after doing a little on-line research on both Nostradamus and the Mayan calendar, I concluded that by comparison, Obamacare may not be that hard to understand after all.

Still, hope springs eternal.

ABC News did a story suggesting that while the Mayans may have been onto something, the actual global endgame may have been miscalculated by 50 to 100 years.

Every little bit helps.

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(S. L. Frisbie is retired. In his on-line research, he saw a realistic-looking video showing the end of the world occurring as a result of a succession of calamities, including just about every conceivable disaster except the Bucs’ last-play-of-the-game 23-21 loss to the Eagles a few days ago. At the close of the show, the producer implored: “Please Give Us Five Stars.”)